William Peterson, CFA
President
Bill started his financial career in 1993 at a commodities trading firm in Minneapolis, worked on a mortgage trading desk then went to First Trust (USBank) in sales and client servicing roles in its institutional trust area. Bill moved to American Express (Ameriprise) in 2001, Genworth Financial in 2005 and The Leuthold Group in 2007. He started Real Asset Strategies, LLC in 2019 because he saw a need for a liquid, reasonably priced real asset strategy that focused on assets that provide diversification and inflation protection. He has a B.A. from Carleton College in Economics, and MBA from the University of Minnesota in Strategic Financial Management. Bill is a CFA® charterholder.
Michael Ashton, CFA
Director of Research and Portfolio Manager, “The Inflation Guy”
Michael is Director of Research and Portfolio Manager at RAS and also CEO of Enduring Intellectual Properties. Mr. Ashton is a real asset and inflation professional who has over 25 years of finance experience at firms including Natixis, Bankers Trust, Deutsche Bank, Barclays and J.P. Morgan. Michael was the primary developer of the CPI futures contract in 2004 and its first market maker, has written two books on financial markets (most recently What’s Wrong with Money by Wiley), co-authored a chapter on commodities investing (along with the person to first define an investable commodity index), taught commodities classes at J.P. Morgan, developed the S&P Target Tuition Inflation Index, as well as a unique commodities index. Mr. Ashton graduated from Trinity University with a B.A. in Economics. Michael is a CFA® charterholder.